The invention relates to an x-ray diffractometer with a position-sensitive detector which is movable in stepped fashion around a sample and which generates output signals triggered by each x-ray quantum. An electronic evaluation unit converts the output signals into a time duration corresponding to a position of a particular x-ray quantum in the detector. A time-digital converter converts the time duration to a digital signal and the digital signal is combined with another digital signal corresponding to a position of the dectector determined by the stepping motor.
Such x-ray diffractometers are known, for example, from German AS No. 2637945, incorporated herein by reference, for rapid measurement over a large angle range. The possibilities of the position-sensitive detector to simultaneously cover a plurality of angular degrees of the measuring circle without thereby losing resolution, are advantageously exploited in a simple manner for x-ray diffractometers. In this manner, the measuring time has already been reduced to approximately 1/100 of the traditional systems, i.e. systems without position-sensitive detectors.
For covering a larger angle range, the detector in the known x-ray diffractometer is moved by means of a stepping motor. The motor steps are added in a counter. The counting result-after a demultiplication, if necessary-represents the digital value for the detector position and more precisely for the center of the detector. A time-digital transducer supplies the deviation from the detector center for every x-ray quantum registered in the detector. The respective sum of these two values corresponds to the exact angular attitude of the registered x-ray quantum and determines the address in a multi-channel analyzer at which this event is stored.
In many investigations, it also suffices to only observe a limited angular range. Such uses, for example, can be phase transitions under pressure or high and low temperatures, domain collapsing processes, solid state reactions, formation processes, expansion measurements, voltage measurements, and the like. In particular, the dynamics of such processes as a function of various measuring parameters is thereby of interest.